Political Morsels and Other Droppings

This is getting off topic of health care, but I think we all need a break from talking about it.  Last night I decided to hit the gym for my late-night workout. I normally can’t pull it off during the week with that minor problem of having to wake up early for work the next day, but I do the late night workouts when I can, because there’s less competition for the resistance training (weights).  After last night, I have found another benefit as to why I prefer working out with a minimal amount of people. 

I hadn’t been to the gym for a few days and decided that I would do the treadmill.  Now, I am not a runner.  I’m not one of those folks who can get on and run for a full thirty minutes.  Hell, I can’t even run for five minutes.  Instead, I walk at a fast pace for a bit, perhaps on an incline for optimal calorie burnage, (it’s a word now) and then I’ll run for a couple minutes, and go back and forth.  Well, as I ran, I would increase the speed a bit. I finally got to a point where I was running so fast that my lungs started to burn a little. I decided instead of having to manually decrease the speed, I’d hop off to the sides of the treadmill and decrease from there.  I’ve seen hundreds of other folks do it at the gym. One crucial point that I missed… they would place their hands on the sides and lift themselves off of the moving part and then would land on the stationary sides.  I forgot about the lifting thing and tried to simply jump and land. However, my landing ended up being more glorious than those before me, as I ended up catching the fast moving part of the treadmill, had no time to grab for anything and was propelled backwards, catching brief air and skidded on both knees and one elbow to a stop.  The landing in the Hudson was much more graceful than what I did. I was like Super Girl on a bad trip.

One guy, who was on a treadmill a few rows from behind, caught the entire show and walked up to see if I was okay.  Frankly, I wasn’t in any pain.  I told him I was fine and then got up to shut the machine off.  I figured this was a sign that I should call it a night on the treadmill. I told the guy I had a misstep and that this was a first.  He responded saying that normally he was the one who would fly off the machine.  I told him I had the claim in for that night.

As I walked, the pain started to set in a bit and blood began to flow a little out of the skinned parts.  Since I wasn’t about to be a baby, I did a little bit with the resistance training before leaving. By this point, two of my fingers were in pain as well. (I believe I jammed them on my landing.) When I came home, I assessed the damage, hit the shower, and nearly had to peel myself off of the ceiling when the hot water touched the very badly skinned knee. For the first time, since I was about ten, I had to patch up my knee.

I’ll have to see how I’m feeling and decide if I’m going to try the stationary bike this evening. 

Oddly enough, I wasn’t embarrassed since there were only four other folks who saw what transpired.  In fact, I was thinking about asking the employees if I could watch the whole thing on the CCTV tape. I mean I’ve seen someone fall and get kicked off the back of a treadmill on commercials and thought it was a riot.  With all the flailing about that I did, I know I’d be rolling on the floor.

I might just ask about it tonight.  I can’t be the first person with the desire to see my own misstep.